Selection of the best dog food is mandatory for your dog’s future health, growth, nourishment, and digestive system activity. The balanced nutritious diet having qualities of a proper amount of energy, protein, fat, vitamins, and minerals quantities as required by your dog is considered excellent food. Here we will discuss the veterinarian approved tips for choosing the best dog food.
It depends upon different parameters like health, age, and weight. Different dogs have different nutritional requirements. Many things should be kept in mind while purchasing prepared food form the market. You will find the complete answers to your questions in this article.
Selection criteria for best dog food brands:
1. Your dog status:
Dog status means your dog’s health, breed, age, body weight, pregnancy, and underlying disease. If we talk about age then nutritional requirements are different for different age dogs. For example, a puppy needs more protein for their growth as compared with adult dogs. Moreover, healthy and elder dogs need to comparatively fewer nutrients to prevent themselves from obesity, diabetes, and heart issues.
Dogs with higher body weight require more feed quantity. In case of chronic underlying diseases of arthritis, urinary inconsistency and urolithiasis your dog may need some precautionary foods. Different breeds’ requirement is also varied. So, the nutritional formula should be recommended by veterinarians according to each dog’s health and status.
2. Food packing label:
Dog packed food labels reading is mandatory to evaluate quality and similarity with your pet status. Always keep in mind the following points to find quality canine food brands.
- Always find chicken meat on the top of the ingredient list
- Never buy food mentioned with the word “by-products”. Buy products have a lower standard than the original meat of skeletal muscles.
- Never stick to the moisture level of feed. Get a comparison of dry matter rather than moisture.
- Check the list of nutrients and their density
- Always prefer human-grade food or food mentioning “human consumption quality”
- The word dinner will be good rather than chicken stew dinner or salmon dinner. They contain only a twenty-five percent protein level.
- The level of vegetables and grains (e.g corn) should be quite low. If your dog is allergic to grains then buy grain-free nutrition.
- For elder dogs, a little bit amount of fibers, fat as well as protein should be comparatively higher than others. Energy calories can be decreased for senior dogs.
- Always prefer the word “balanced diet for dogs” or “complete diet” rather than “energy-rich” or “protein-rich” words.
3. Preservatives and chemicals added food:
Never ever prefer chemicals, preservatives, synthetic colors, tastes added food. These chemicals are harmful to your dog’s health and may lead to kidney damage. Dog food advisors and veterinarians also recommend preservative-free and fresh. So select food having zero chemicals and preservatives or negligible value.
4. Food certifications:
Different food brands have certifications from health and quality assurance institutes. For example, blue buffalo dog food, Fromm, victor dog food, and chewy dog food have these certifications. All the good manufacturers have certification from different institutes.
The following are some certification provider institutes.
- ISO quality assurance lab
- USDA
- FDA
- AAFCO
- American institute of baking
Some brands have one or two certifications from the above list. However, more certifications will give added benefit to its quality.
5. Nutritional adequacies:
Keep an eye on nutrient profile during purchasing food. There should be a rule that only veterinary nutritionists or experienced dog nutritionists can formulate dog feed at the commercial level. Unfortunately, food supplier companies do not prefer to hire veterinarians to save money and the salary of a doctor. However, prefer the brand which claims that our feed is formulated by an authorized veterinary nutritionist.
Otherwise, take a list of nutrients from your field vet and match the list during purchasing. Always not stick to the best dry food or kibble but you can select fresh and pure wet food. Pure and fresh wet food is considered more nutritious rather than dry kibbles.
6. Uncooked or low processed food:
Processing always destroys valuable nutrients. So prefer raw cooked or undercooked food to provide maximum nutrients to your dog. Best recommended dog food is considered as under-cooked food.
7. Full transparencies of manufacturer:
Do complete research after the selection of excellent food. The best dog food 2020 may require your full research of its manufacturer. The good and honest manufacturer never hide their plant from customers and for common people. So, visit the company if possible otherwise make sure either manufacturing processes are fully transparent to people or not.
8. Proper feeding trials:
Investigate your manufacturer and try to explore either your canine food is processed through complete feeding trials or not. Good manufacturers always pass their products through a complete channel of trials. They do trials on each batch of their product.
FAQ’s:
Which one is the best brand recommended by veterinarians?
Food selection and Excellency depend upon a lot of factors. If we talk about the overall quality of brands then these are a good quality brand and also recommended. These are considered as most healthy dog food.
- Hills science diet
- Royal Canin
- Taste of the wild
- ORIJEN
- Blue buffalo
- Purina pro plan
The best dry food, which one is it?
The best dry canine food is given below. Due to their quality and Excellency, these are given names as best dog food 2020 as well as the best food for puppies.
- Wellness complete health dry food
- Nature’s logic dog dry food
- Instinct original grain-free diet
- Blue buffalo life protection diet for dogs
- Diamond natural dry kibbles
Canine food, Which one is number one ?
It depends upon dog status, nutritional formula, ingredients list, vitamins, minerals, and total digestible nutrients. So, dog food fulfilling all these criteria will be considered the best. Otherwise use natural feed than a commercial one.
What are the worst commercial dog food?
- Zignature
- 4Health
- Earthborn Holistic
- Acana
There are considered bad due to the high number of complaints and issues of pet owners. Sometimes, these cause severe illness in dogs.